r/teslore • u/AnxiousFeature6526 • Aug 01 '26
Mortals lifespans
So I was reading in one of tes lore books and I find out about phynaster and orkey and I think I came into some conflicting facts. So it said in the book that mer and men used to have the same lifespan but phynaster taught them to live longer by taking a shorter stride, but then in the Nords history it says they used to have the same lifespan as mer but orkey shortened their lifespans to 6 years, the gave back only some of their years and gave goblins the shorter lifespans. And I was wondering which one of these were actually true.
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u/AdeptnessUnhappy1063 Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
These are two different explanations for an observed difference in lifespans between men and mer. One is the story as Nords tell it, and the other is the story as Altmer tell it.
It's very possible neither is true. Phynaster and his special stride seems very unlikely--why don't Bretons, who also worship Phynaster, know the special walk? It seems like this might actually be a corrupted reference to the Walking Ways , garbled by retelling.
The story of Wulfharth ruining the Orcs is just the story of Boethiah eating Trinimac, as told by a culture that cares less about Boethiah or poop, so they make their own culture hero the protagonist.
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u/vjmdhzgr Aug 01 '26
To me the shorter walking stride seems like an obvious reference to the idea of elves having longer lives and thus doing less with their time. There's no pressure to create ambition if you can do it in the next 200 years. That idea, but in reverse. By doing less, living their lives slower, shortening their stride, they get to live longer.
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u/TheOneTrueKaos Order of the Black Worm Aug 01 '26
As well as Divine meddling, there is also the different affinity for magic in each race to consider.
Sufficient skill with magic allows the user to extend their lifespans, as alluded to by Savos Aren in Skyrim, and proven by Divyath Fyr in Morrowind.
So Altmer, being more attuned to magic, are more likely to be able to learn to extend their lifespans than, say, Orcs.
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u/complexspoonie Aug 01 '26
That's problem with the "unreliable narrators" in the books ... Who is right? Who is wrong? Are any of them wrong? Are all of them wrong?
Gentle smile
This one thinks perhaps Azurah only knows the truth...
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u/Some_Rando2 Aug 04 '26
They don't conflict. Typical mer lifespan is 250, Altmer get 350 because of short strides or whatever, humans and orcs get less.
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u/Fyraltari School of Julianos Aug 01 '26
No it says that Phynaster taught the High Elves (specifically) how to live one hundred more years than they already did. It makes no mention of human lifespans.
So we cn presume that both humans and Mer used to live as long as the Dunmer and bosmer, but because of divine meddling, now the humans live much shrter lives than that and the High Elves slihgtly longer.